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Earlier this week, AUB’s Islamist club which called itself “Insight”, but it ironically lacks any, was supposed to hold an event to discuss homosexuality featuring two Islamist speakers who advocate, in 2017, for electrical conversion therapy as a possible way to “cure” homosexuality, among other things.

The American University of Beirut should have known better not to let a club foster borderline hate-speech, rooted in all the non-science possible, from two “scientists” going against everything that acknowledged scientific facts stand for. But I’ve learned not to hope for much from a university who’s more worried about its bottom line, than the protection of minorities in its campus and preventing the perpetuation of horrifying dogma that has no place inside its campus.

The outcry was deafening, leading to the club to cancel the event under the guise of them “receiving threats.” Yeah, right.

Except AUB’s Insight Club didn’t stop there, releasing a video earlier this week as well that wants men not to be “ashamed” of telling their female friends not to touch them. Because, clearly, the problem in our societies is that men are being touched by women without their consent. I mean, it’s common knowledge that those women force themselves on men all the time, isn’t it Insight club? So much Insight, I can’t even.

The video, 40 seconds long, features a boy named Karim who has been best friends with Reem since their first day at AUB, except Reem – THAT SLUT – has become so comfortable around Karim that – THE SCANDAL – she’s used to holding his hand sometimes.

But Karim – THE SAINT – knows that he should stop this. Keep in mind, Karim is “open mind.” He wears a NYC shirt. I mean, has Karim ever been in NYC? One wonders. I would bet he hasn’t, because his brain would have been fried by the amount of SIN – Allah have mercy – that is present in that city. I mean, gay people can hold hands. Straight people can hold hands. Transgender people can hold hands. Women can even legally walk the street without a shirt or a bra.

Anyway, Karim is conflicted. He wants to tell Reem that he doesn’t want her to touch him anymore, but she’s the problem. Every time he takes away his hand, she forces herself on him. What a problematic woman. And then when he thinks about talking to her about it, Karim decides to go all Lebanese ghetto with his “man” and “bro.”

This is the video:

It wasn’t even the only video they’ve had. In another one, they are criticizing the curriculum of the university as being critical of their religion. This time, it’s Toufic who does all the wondering:

It’s AUB’s Islamist club’s right to exercise their free speech. But it comes at a point where one wonders: if you’re this annoyed by secularism and progressive values (with a slight tear being shed at progressive designating a man and a woman interacting), then why the hell are you a student at the American University of Beirut, an institution that is as far away from being a religious institution as it goes – the Bible verse on its main gate and its Christian history aside?

If you want Islamic values to be taught in the classroom, go to one of Lebanon’s Islamic universities and indulge yourself. If you want extreme Islam to be your way of life, then I’m sorry to inform you that you chose the wrong university, bro.

The above video is spreading a radical agenda. It’s not even how most Lebanese Muslims go about their lives, as they tend to be on the more moderate side of the spectrum. The problem here is that the American University of Beirut, fresh from its $700,000 settlement with the U.S. government, has its name affixed to such a video, spreading such a message, and to a club who’s doing its best to decimate all the values that AUB stands for.

Should AUB close them down? That would be a limitation of their freedom of speech, even if their speech is worthy of being propagated as the insight-lacking Insight club is offering nothing new, apart from being backward, ridiculous, and radical.

Since when are openly religious clubs, spreading radical religious agenda allowed at the American University of Beirut? What’s next, having a club call itself Crusaders take place in the university calling for it to go back to its Protestant past?

AUB, if you keep allowing such clubs to fester on your premises, you risk your entire secular reputation that you’ve worked years on trying to maintain. It’s horrifying that a time when clubs such as AUB’s secular club give hope in what this country could be one day, the university allows this to happen.

As a rule of thumb, we feel proud when such discoveries happen at local institutions because we can relate to them somehow.

Today, I feel even prouder because the man that discovered this reaction was my professor at AUB.

Makhlouf Haddadin, a Jordanian professor, has discovered a new reaction which he called the Davis-Beirut reaction, after ten years of testing during which he didn’t come out on Lebanese TV shows to discuss his science, to boost himself among the Lebanese populace, to get some free advertising, etc.

This isn’t his first discovery as well. Prior to Lebanon’s civil war, Dr. Haddadin discovered a reaction which he called the Beirut reaction and which has caused AUB’s Chemistry department to get a huge boost ever since.

According to Dr. Haddadin, his new reaction might serve as a breakthrough in the treatment of cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder that mostly manifests in the lungs. You’d probably recognize it as the disease that killed French singer Gregory LeMarchal. It currently has no cure.

My most memorable memory with Dr. Haddadin wasn’t the organic chemistry course I took with him during my Sophomore year. It was when I went to his class on May 7th, 2008 and we were almost 10 people and he gave us a talk about the merits of the country we were in.

He told us that what was happening outside the fences of our campus was reminiscent of things that took place around the civil war in Lebanon. He told us about student uprisings, about how democracy doesn’t work by canceling other opinions, how democracy doesn’t work via violence.

He also told us how lucky we were to be Lebanese, how lucky we were to come from a country where scientific discoveries weren’t stifled by a state that was worried about what such discoveries might entail, how fortunate he was to be working in this country where he felt he could give his all without having a big brother eye overlooking his every experiment, how grateful he was for Beirut to have welcomed him so warmly. He told us that was why he named the reaction he discovered back then after the city that he loved.

He then begged us not to waste our country away because we didn’t know the value of what we had, given the region in which we lived.

Between 2008 and 2013, I daresay we as Lebanese have probably failed Dr. Haddadin. But this man is still grateful to Beirut nonetheless.

Like this:

A couple of days ago, I blogged about a mistake on an American research symposium that listed the Lebanese university AUB as located in Israel.

Following the publication of that post, it got picked up by various news outlets, such as L’Orient Le Jour, Annahar, Kataeb and New TV who shed light on the matter as well.

Today, I checked the program of the symposium and it seems the mistake has been corrected: AUB is listed as in Lebanon.

I was told that such mistakes aren’t always a bad thing as they help shed light on the research they are part in. I personally believe, however, that research should be able to stand on its own merits and not employ such gimmicks in order to turn ears.

We’ll never know the details of how such a mistake remained in the program till a week before the symposium started. But I guess what matters is the bottom line: getting it fixed. Good luck to those who are presenting the research and I hope they do a good job.

Like this:

I attended AUB from 2007 till 2010. Back in my days, which were not that long ago, we used to pay for 12 credits only even though we were able to register a maximum of 17 per semester.

I thought the system as it stood back then was great – it allowed me to be a full-time student and graduate on time without overburdening my parents with paying for every single credit that I was forced to take in order to count for the 90 required to get that coveted diploma. In 2010, however, AUB decided they were going to enforce new regulations that would raise the 12 credit standard to 15 for those enrolling in the upcoming semester.

I was graduating that year so it didn’t affect me. But I couldn’t disassociate myself from the notion that those who would come after me would be victims of these regulations that were not only unfounded at the time, but were also supported by baseless arguments that are still being used today. So as part of the AUB student body back then, we had a mass protest across campus. We boycotted classes. We paralyzed the university. We all participated. Then those heading the movement blew it by letting politics seep into it and the movement soon crumbled due to the too many heads that wanted to become leaders and instead of abolishing the tuition fees regulations, we simply postponed them. And they called it a victory – the students who slept on the floor outside College Hall for nights, however, did not. And those generations for whom we protested back then are receiving the short end of the stick we knew they would today.

Ever since I graduated, tuition fees at AUB have increased by 37%, at about $5000 per academic year. The increase includes another 6% hike this year. Technology fees for internet and connectivity on campus have also gone up by 50%. Wasn’t internet supposed to be getting cheaper in this country?

AUB is proud of its financial aid situation. Most applicants receive financial aid, they say. Bu there’s a huge difference between receiving aid in principle and the amount of aid a student gets: a 10% financial aid counts towards the former statistics. But is 10% enough?

AUB personnel who are handling these tuition increases justify them as due to the “increasingly bad economic situation in the country which necessitated such increases in order to keep AUB functional.”

The economic situation is touching everyone. I know of families who are well-off whose situation has deteriorated so rapidly lately that they’ve decided to simply leave. We have no government. Unemployment is reportedly at 42%. Isn’t this also affecting the parents of the students who are supposed to pay those fees? Is it plausible to have American-type fees in a country where the average income doesn’t come close to the American average?

I guess this is what comes when student elections are more about politics and which political side wins than about those who actually work. As long as this party or that gets a majority at the Student Representatives Council and the USFC later on, everything is okay. There are no issues to raise, I suppose. Where is that free printing again?

It’s easy to dismiss all of this as simply “if you can’t afford AUB, then don’t consider it.” And for the majority of Lebanese people, this is the case. We’d also be delusional to believe that the students attending AUB are people who cannot afford it. But is that also enough reason to simply not talk about the issue and let such tuition prices rise go unchallenged, excluding the portions of Lebanese society that could have, at one point, afforded giving their children the best education that Lebanon could provide?

As an alumnus, there’s not really much I can do. But how about AUB students who are now nagging about these increases actually ask themselves, come November, when they’re voting: AUB tuition fees, where do you go now? Perhaps then they can form a student body that can create a road map to let people know which class of Lebanese gets access to Green Oval and that ugly Zaha Hadid building.

Towards the end of my AUB days, someone decided to close down the area that held an infirmary in order for some new construction to take place.

I am not unfamiliar with construction projects at AUB which filled my time when I was there: both the Olayan School of Business and the Hostler student center opened when I was a student. I’m no expert nor do I know anything about architecture but they never struck me as disembodied elements of AUB’s campus.

The building depicted in the above picture is what’s standing in place of the infirmary today. Is it hideous? You bet. Is it an atrocity? Definitely. Does it take away from the charm of AUB’s upper campus? Well, it is a concrete block with holes in it. Again, unprofessional opinion here.

Why is such an ugly building overshadowing Nicely Hall? Because it has Zaha Hadid affixed to it, the world’s most famous architect, who “won” the competition to build this. As if the pull of her name alone isn’t enough to sway the competition.

I have to ask – and it’s obviously too late now for such a question – but didn’t anyone from AUB’s administration get a tinge of nausea as they passed by this growing structure and saw it disfiguring the campus many of them call home? And isn’t the mere presence of such a building disrespectful to the architecture faculty at AUB which is more than capable of coming up with better and more campus-relevant buildings?

But I guess this is how things roll around the country: go with the flashiest, most expensive, most prominent names because that’s sure to be better. Issam Fares- no relation-, after whom this building is named, should probably sue them for libel.

The last few days have taught me that the statement: “I believe in freedom of speech” has to be amended to become the following: “I believe in freedom of speech as long as I agree with the speech.” Beyond that point of agreement, all bets of civility of discourse are off. Bigot, ignorant, racist, condescending, extremist, hypocrite, illiterate or any derogatory word of choice gets dropped in order to counter a point, regardless of what that point may be.

Santa Muerte, Santa Ejre:

I didn’t want to go over anything related to this issue again. It was blown way out of proportion. But my words were taken out of context. Lebanon’s self-anointed blogging police started to ridicule what I had to offer. Somehow this blog being nominated for Blog of the Year at the Social Media Awards became a mark of shame for some people – as if that changed things. News outlets started contacting me for their stories. And I realized that, even though I had actually blogged about the issue, I had never gotten the chance to say what I had to say for my input was very brief. In spite of the issue being overdone at this point, I believe it is my right to tell my point of view in detail. You may want to read it and you may not but here it goes.

I found Bershka shirt, aptly called shirtgate – the Mexican Embassy IS opening a shrine – offensive. Is it my right to find it offensive? You bet it is. Did I call for the shirt to be banned from Lebanese markets? No. Did I say it wasn’t a person’s right to wear the shirt? No I didn’t.

You don’t need google to consider the shirt offensive. Any person’s first impression of what the shirt says is with what they connect it. I believe it was Descartes’ school of thought which said our perceptions are the actions of our mind on our senses. The actions of your mind come from your previous experiences. When Lebanese people look at that shirt, the first thing they’d see is what they previously know: Mary icons present in churches or homes.

What people don’t seem to get is that people have different red lines whose crossing means getting offended. If people are offended by the shirt, it’s okay. If people are not, it’s okay as well because those people have their own lines as well and if they are crossed then they will bring their own fury to being. What’s not okay is some people calling those who are offended bigots, ignorants, etc… For not being aware of Santa Muerte, which 90% of the Lebanese populace wasn’t even aware of prior to yesterday.

This brings me to another point: Santa Muerte is irrelevant. It is not culturally relevant here and it’s being used to iron out the issue by those who want to portray all religious folk in Lebanon as a bunch of narrow-minded individuals. Is the shirt Santa Muerte? It could be. At least that’s what Bershka said. But it could be Our Lady of Guadelupe as well, which is actually present in many Lebanese churches, one of which is in my hometown which could be why I found the shirt print familiar.

The point is: the fact that Santa Muerte is not something most Lebanese are familiar with means that the shirt will be taken offensively. People do not have to google a shirt print. You judge it based on what you know. As an example, alcohol is allowed in Lebanon but it’s not culturally permitted in Saudi Arabia. Would you walk in their streets with a Jack Daniels shirt? Cow meat is allowed here but it’s not culturally allowed in India… how about a shirt with a burger on it? The list goes on.

You may not want to be culturally limited even if you are aware but what I believe many need to realize is there’s more to the world than the space between them and their computer and Twitter followers and, if a person has a blog, readers. We talk and analyze and extrapolate but the fact of the matter remains that less than a third of the Lebanese population has smartphones and not everyone has access to the internet and not everyone likes to read our English-written blogs. I may not get up in a fit if I see someone wearing that shirt on the street but are you willing to bet no one else would?

Only today, I had my legs crossed at a bank in Tripoli when a man asked me to uncross them because he was offended by my shoes’ sole being in the far corner of his eyesight.

Another important thing to note is that Santa Muerte is not a saint nor is it a holy figure. It’s Mexican folklore. Lebanese people who are not aware of their own folklore are supposed to know international folklores as well now? The Catholic Church of Mexico considers those who worship Santa Muerte as heretics-lite. This may not be relevant to those who don’t care what any religious institution has to say but it does for those who do, of which I am not. But there is another aspect to the conversation that is being disregarded because it doesn’t fit with the perfect Santa Whatever explanation.

After all, why would Mexican relatives of mine find the shirt print offensive if it were all that “innocent?”

Another point being raised is that Bershka is simply bringing in their entire collection to Lebanon, which I find to be non-sensical. Do companies always automatically import everything they make into this country without any form of market study or market appraisal? Any look at the shirt would have sufficed to realize it might cause a backlash among many of their customers. The shirt may have not been brought into the country but the price tag of 49,000LL means there was a will to bring it in.

The bottom line is: both sides of the story have arguments in their favor. It goes down to what you believe in. If you believe holy figures should not be demonized then the shirt offends you. If not, then the shirt will not. But people from both sides attacking each other is unacceptable as I witnessed firsthand with people calling me ignorant, a bigot, condescending and a bunch of other things just for the fun of it.

Ziad el Rahbani vs AUB Students:

Nothing can beat Santa Muerte when it comes to attention over the past few days. But the man of whom I am not a fan Mr. Ziad el Rahbani had an open dialogue session at AUB during which a bunch of attendees protested his political stance against the Syrian revolution and called him out on it.

The interesting part, though, is that I found out about the Ziad el Rahbani protest not from someone who is supportive of those students but one who was absolutely outraged because they made AUB students look like fools in front of such a man. That person, typically, felt it appropriate to call those students every word imaginable from the belt down. And he wasn’t alone at it.

The protesting students had their share of supporters as well who felt what they did was absolutely noble. I am personally with what those students did because it was 1) peaceful, 2) a demonstration of their basic right of free speech and 3) it didn’t interfere with the session’s proceedings.

I believe it is their right to protest in the way that they did. Their right stops in a hypothetical scenario where they wreck the hall or attack Mr. Rahbani himself.

I am personally supportive of what the students did and I commend them on it. But isn’t it the right of both who are against and supportive of Ziad el Rahbani to be heard?

George Abdallah:

On the other side of the political spectrum, many Lebanese are protesting what they are calling the French authorities unjustly keeping Lebanese George Abdallah behind bars. To that extent, they set up protests outside of the French embassy occasionally, most of which were peaceful and only served to prove the point being raised.

I do not agree with the protests, nor do I agree with the whole “unjust imprisonment” idea. But isn’t it their right to voice their disdain of the situation as well without having irrelevant me ridiculing them for it?

Boycotting Guns ‘N Roses, BDS, Israel:

Prior to the Guns ‘N Roses concert in Lebanon, a movement calling to boycott the concert was started. Many Lebanese may have not gone to the concert because of it but many other did. After all, the concert was a success. The boycott call was picked up by many Lebanese and often ridiculed.
The only question that popped in my head was: are they bothering me if they are not attending a concert without calling for the concert to be canceled?
The only answer that answered my question satisfyingly was: no they are not.

So I shrugged it off and didn’t write about it. Let them have their fun. I don’t think we should panic every time an artist who has set foot in Israel decides to hold a concert here. But what if someone wants to have a panic attack because of it? Simply, let them have it.

I draw the line when those movements start expanding to some form of neo-culutral terrorism whereby they get the concert in question to be canceled, the artist to cower from coming over and, sometimes, Lebanese acts to suffer in the process.

The bottom line:

Be it a shirt, a political movement, a concert, a dialogue session or a simple conversation, people are allowed to differ in opinion and have their opinion heard even if others find it subpar, unconvincing or unacceptable. What is becoming clearer to me, however, is that the concept of freedom of speech in Lebanon is relative. You get to enjoy its perks as long as you conform to what the vocal bunch expects of you to write or say.

But you know what, the past few days have also shown me that if being ignorant, a bigot and condescending comprises of what I did, then I am all those three and more and I’m proud of it.

Do you regret the whole Bershka shirt post, I was asked over the past two days. My answer was and will always be: definitely not.

Notta-Bene:

For those who were up in a fit how we weren’t discussing more “relevant” issues in Lebanon today, I invite you to read the following articles which I have written over the past two weeks:

You know all those memes and jokes about your crush not knowing you exist? Well, some Lebanese students decided to put an end to it all by creating a sort of gossip hub where they gather people’s infatuations and broadcast them anonymously for their entire campus to see.

This “gossip hub” has taken the form of several Facebook pages for most of Lebanon’s major universities: USJ, NDU, LAU and AUB. Despite launching only yesterday, the USJ page has so far near 1000 likes. The other universities haven’t caught on the crushes fever yet.

I find the idea to be smart: it gives those who have a crush on other people the courage that comes with anonymity to declare their feelings. It serves as an interesting addition to campus life that Lebanese universities have yet to see and, most importantly I guess, it just sounds like so much fun: the interaction that I saw on the corresponding Facebook pages because of it is proof enough for that.

The process is simple. You submit info about your crush anonymously to the page: they don’t know who you are and you can even make any info about your crush as ambiguous as possible. In turn, the page admins post the info on the Facebook page. People are guessing almost immediately who the person is and tagging them. The tricky part is for that person to know who got that post to be published on Facebook in the first place.

Some students have a crush on their professors:

Very smooth Elie, very smooth.

I commend the students behind these pages for the very clever idea. Don’t be surprised if you get contacted by several high profile entities regarding your pages quite soon. It’ll only be a matter of time.

Some more examples from the USJ page, which is by far the most interesting:

As for everyone else, if you feel like you absolutely must tell your crush that you are crushing on them – anonymously of course – here are the necessary links for you:

Hopefully students finding each other will lead to some form of much needed release in this country. I’m tired of recommending tranquilizing pills to the huge amount of people always on edge I’m encountering lately.

Update: Was just informed that, as I suspected, the idea is taken from universities abroad where the Facebook page in question has the format: Spotted: [X] University.

Update 2: University of Balamand (UOB) and USEK have their own pages now: